Observations From My Dad Upon Finally Watching The Devil Wears Prada Last Night

“Why are they calling her fat? Did they just call her fat? That’s ridiculous. Is this supposed to be a joke? She’s rail-thin.”

“She’s gaunt. This doesn’t make any sense.”

On Anne Hathaway: “I like her, but there was no reason to give her that Oscar.” [My mother: “She was wonderful. She sang that song so expressively.”] “She ruined that song.”

“There’s no coffee in any of those coffee cups. Look, you can tell by the way she’s holding it. It’s just an empty cup.”

“Who is that? No, the other one. The one with the red hair; I’ve seen her in something.” [It was Emily Blunt]

“Stanley Tucci is the greatest.”

On my mother’s inability to see Anne Hathaway’s resemblance to a young Liza Minnelli: “Do you really not see it?” [Mom: “Her face is shaped completely different.”] “It’s in the eyes! Look at her eyes!”

“There. Again. Did you see that? No coffee in those cups.”

[At this point we paused the movie because a little girl walking by the front of the house had started trying to throw a football through our basketball hoop. She made it on her third try. It was wonderful.]

“Why’d she throw that steak away? She should have eaten that steak. I know she was angry, but it was a perfectly good steak.”

“She should have told him she slept with that other guy.” [Mom, doing her best Ross from Friends: “They were on a break!”] That doesn’t count. It wasn’t made very clear, the terms of their break, before she went to Paris.”

“Oh, she’s going to throw her cell phone in the fountain. Symbol of liberation.” [She did] “She threw it in the fountain!” [Mom: “Stop patting yourself on the back, John, you’re going to hurt your arm.”] “Well, she did.”

“What was so great about that? All she did was smile in the limousine. That wasn’t so great.”

“That was the stupidest thing I ever saw. She was rail-thin, and her clothes didn’t change a bit from beginning to end. They kept calling her fat, which was absurd, and she was mean to her boyfriend, and should have told him she slept with the other guy. And there was no coffee in any of those coffee cups. Let’s go to the back room; I’ll read you all another chapter of Pilgrim’s Progress.”